Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

ZS it Japanese wood cuts "TELEGRAPH" Sydney, N.S.W. THE Japanese woodcuts of the 18th and 19th centuries at Newmans raise the issue of originality. Which is more impor- tant, technique or ima- sination? The artist's handiwork or his inven- tion? Obviously imagination and invention Is the main thing, for t hese ?Japanese prints were nut actually made by Utamaro and Him- shige and all the other artists whose names they bear. They did not actually carve t h e wood blocks from which the pictures are print- ed. (Nor of course did they print them. Some artists like to do their own printing, but this has never been neces- sary to quality them as original prints.) The artists would have made a drawing, in the knowledge of . course that it would be 5 used for a woodcut. :Then some specialists : artisan would have I translated It. into t h e :canted woodblock, and other specialists again ...,:ici have printed it on 1..) paper from the block. Yet we s ',tatty admire these woot.uts. , and have done so , vet' since' 'Whistler and ) the What's .11,rt Gallery of N.S. V. Special exhibitions: Al. street watercolors by Is Americans: G. W. Lam- bert drawings. David Jones; Trans - field Prize. Macquarie: Michael Shannon. Little Gallery: Sydney Migrant Artists. Newmans: Japanese woodcuts. Dominion ; Geoffrey Hooper. DarlInghurst: R a y Crooke. Stern: Pro Hart paintings; John Gilbert, not terY. Gallery A: William R ose. Hungry Horse: Eman- The week in A rt- Gy Daniel Thomas French Impressionists discovered them 100 years ago. They were especial- ly valued for their cas- ual informal composi- tion and for their fiat, decorative treatment of space. And unlike the rep- roductive etching a n d lithographs made in Paris today, and which have had the new name "pochoir" invented for them, the Japanese woodcuts had no snob- bery of signatures or of limited editions. They were very cheap; so cheap that Japan's own connoisseurs have usu- on in art uel Raft, John Stock - dale. iune: Elwyn Lynn. Von Bertouch, New- castle: Four potters, Cana, Wollongong: Andrew Schlecht. Canberra Gallery A: Drawings and water- colors. OPENING WEDNESDAY Komon: George Bel- deasin, sculpture. Walters: Pearl, Proud, Williams. Clifford. OPENING THURSDAY Newcastle City Art Gallery: English Medie- val Pottery. OPENING FRIDAY Canberra Macquarie: Les Blakebrough, pot- tery. ally despised them. They were intended for the lowest level of the art market, they were the pin-ups of their time and place, or tour- ist views, or illustrated proverbs. So even the later edi- tions from freshly cut blocks should not. theoretically, be necess- arily less desirable than the initial publication, though in fact they are usually leas finely cut. It is chiefly condition of preservation that effects the price of their woodcuts. It is only their less than perfect condition which allows the impressions at New - mans to be sold so reas- onably (many at 15 to E50) instead of the sev- eral hundred pounds they might cost other- wise. SHANNON Michael Shannon (Macquarie) paints the streets of South Yarra in a chill,, grey and white light, under flat black skies. Very differ- ent Indeed from the swarming red megalo- polis of his last show. which might have been Sydney. He is Interested in the character of cities, their typical houses, shop -fronts and signs. He is reticent ,though. There is a Drys- dale sort of character study called "Old Harry" to make one notice something similar in their drawing. But the surfaces are kept spare and dry, not be glamor- ed with many glazes like Drysdale; the character study leaves more priv- acy to Old Harry. Prices 80 to 600 guineas. My favorite. "Suburban Gothick," where the greyness stands for age, fading, ghostliness, as well as for description and for chill light. ROSE - William Rase (Gal- lery A) is very much improved, or, rather, reverted to the tight but open quality of some years ago. No more big banal objects in space; each large element now has a sub- structure of his old scaffolding instead of trying to live alone. That scaffolding now by hindsight seems to in- clude piano-machinery bits (we've seen Luce- lev's pianos). We are, told that these pictures come from Beethoven's music, but not whether from symphony or sonata, In any case the building-un of small precise elements into swelling masses or into extended branchings seems convincing for piano music from the age of Romanticism. Eleven blue paintings. 200-400 guineas; plus drawings 45-80 guineas of which one, at 55, with clusters of urgent hooking lines HART Pro Hart (Stern', the Broken Hill miner with a sell-out, was classified as a naive a couple of years ago. Now he's not really naive; sometimes he looks merely ama- teur. sometimes, as with a few studies of insects, professional to the point of slickness. Despite their shortcomings as paintings his ebullient man's - world subject matter is a kind of Aus- trallana that doesn't often get presented so naturally, with so little romanticising. Where Drysdale might present noble horses and ele- gant aboriginals, Hart's race meetings look for- ward to the pleasures of a drunkei bra .1 ""1 to